A/N: I made a Tom edit. Clearly he's taking over my life...

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I can't run anymore

I fall before you

Here I am

I have nothing left

Evanescence

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Hermione P.O.V

I was exhausted. Defeated. Tom left me standing alone beside the Great Lake toying with the serpentine necklace anxiously in one hand, my mind filled with nothing but him.

I wish I could think of something else. Anything else. But I couldn't. It was like Tom Riddle was taking over me, consuming so much of my identity that I felt trapped even standing out in the school grounds beneath the steady rays of the sun. I was outside the damned School well away from Tom physically but emotionally I might as well have been handcuffed to a Dementor.

The last class of the day was actually a free period. I began the slow walk back up to the main entrance of the School, my mind racing a million miles an hour until I could feel the impending pounding sensation of a looming headache.

I had to read the book Tom gave me. He intended for me to read it. So what was stopping me?

I walked to the Slytherin Common Room alone, with terrible thoughts my only company. My fears only became further pronounced when I saw Tom standing beside the door like a casual inhuman barrier. He looked up when he saw me, his black eyes shining very brightly somehow and his tall figure casting a distorted shadow against the wall. I swallowed nervously.

"I have something I want you to do for me." He said as soon as I approached, staring at me directly. His look was so sharp I felt stripped to nothing. I tucked my hands up inside my cloak sleeves, a clear sign of discomfort that Tom noticed. He smiled down at me, obviously enjoying how terrible he made me feel.

"What is it you want me to do?" I said weakly. Tom's eyes shone even brighter, it was impossible to look away.

"I want you to look over the book I gave you." He said simply.

I must've looked disappointed because Tom raised an eyebrow.

"Look over?" I repeated.

"I thought a vivacious reader such as yourself would be thrilled at the prospect of learning something new." His tone was purely sadistic. He was getting off on this, clearly.

"I do enjoy reading." I said irritably. "But this is different, and we both know it. That book is full of horrible things. Hideous things, even."

"How could you possibly know that if you havent even read it?" Tom said delicately.

"I have read some parts of it." I snapped. "And I've decided I don't want to read any further."

"In the Bible, Satan tempted Eve with forbidden knowledge." Tom told me. His tone was so careless, it could've come across as bored.

"And look where that got Eve. She died." I said, crossing my arms across my chest.

"To die in biblical terms often refers to enlightenment." Tom said dismissively. "Eve did the right thing. She chose knowledge over ignorance. And we all know that knowledge is equivalent to power, don't we?"

"How do you even know about the Bible?" I demanded. I didn't think for one moment anyone who could play such careless games and eventually split their own soul would've given a damn about the Bible let alone be rattling off information based from the scriptures.

Tom shot me a look, and I understood immediately.

"Hold on. You've read it haven't you? The entire thing." I was beyond shocked, images flashing through my mind of a boy Tom Riddle poring over the Bible alone in his bedroom.

"Well," Tom said on a irate laugh, "What did you think I did in that pathetic Orphanage for all those years with nothing but the Bible and pathetic muggle children's books to read? I chose out of the two the most obvious, the worlds' most controversial, blood stained literature. It was at the time a challenge, and a perfect means to occupy my mind." Tom said as conversationally as one might say I enjoy a nice stroll along the beach. And occasionally I do like going for a dip now and then.

"And then?" I said incredulously. "What did you make of it?"

Tom paused for a split second, as if weighing what words to speak.

"I took my own truths from it." He said finally, staring at me so intently I was fast becoming unnerved.

"I... think need to go to my room."

"No."

The tone in Tom's voice made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand, my feet suddenly becoming rooted to the ground like I had forgotten to walk.

"You are going to read the book I gave you," Tom told me crassly, "Because my patience with you is wearing thin, and you do not want to be around me when that happens. Do you understand? Or would you like me to elaborate?"

"I understand." I said, biting my tongue before I said something I'd regret.

"Good. Now you can go back to your room."

I walked past him quickly, entering through the door and up the stairs to my dorm, not stopping until I had closed the door of my room firmly behind me.

On my bedside table Tom's book sat, black and foreboding like a curse just waiting to destroy my life.

I walked over to it slowly, staring at it with an increasing feeling of hopelessness. I had no choice. I had to read the damned book. I stood there for what felt like an eternity, wanting nothing more than for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

Anything but to give in to Tom's desires.

"Staring at it isn't going to help."

I jumped out of my skin. Tom Riddle was standing right behind me. How the hell did he even get into my room without me hearing anything?

I watched in horror as he walked forward, reaching out and picking up the book with one pale hand.

"I can read it to you, since you're obviously scared to death of it." He opened one page at random, not even bothering to look at me even after barging so unceremoniously into my personal space.

"Counter curses and protective enchantments," He read aloud in a ringing voice, "Are proof of matured practical-"

"Defensive strategy utilised by wizardkind." I finished.

Tom paused, staring at the page for the briefest moment, and then looked up at me. I thought for one horrific moment that he was going to curse me. But as soon as the thought had entered my mind he composed himself, looking back down at the book again.

"When used correctly," He continued in a distinctly sharper tone, "The theory applied to the spoken magic proves itself sufficient in providing not only the caster protection but the promise of-"

"Further awareness to the finer details of self defence, which is essential in anyone desiring power without the cost of defeat." I said, mainly because I couldn't stop myself above anything else.

Tom looked up at me, and this time his eyes were... intrigued?

"What page am I on?" He asked me suddenly, all pretence out the window.

I answered before I could help myself.

An image of Tom's hasty writing flashed through my mind like blinding light.

"60." I said matter of factly.

Tom closed the book, the resounding snapping sound of the book closing the only noise in the entire room.

"I'm sorry." I said quietly.

Tom was silent, placing the book lightly on the nightstand beside him appearing to be thinking about what to say next.

"I'm sorry." I said again. "Sometimes I speak before I can help myself-"

"Clearly." Tom responded. But there was a note of amusement in his voice. He wasn't angry.

Or so I thought.

"I really am sorry." I started again. "I'm-"

"No, Hermione." Tom cut across me harshly. "I am sorry. Your mind is brilliant. Impressive, even. However, there is this just one thing that is almost agonizing to me. You as a person have more or less wasted away your potential by encasing yourself away in that walled up fortress you and others lovingly call innocence. And I find that disgusting."

"I don't know why you find me so abhorrent." I said, stung. "I'm only being myself-"

"That's the fucking problem." Tom's eyes were burning fire, searing me to the core, his words were like ruthless blades that lodged in me deeper than I'd like to ever admit.

"Have you ever considered what good it would it would do to step away from your identity for just one damn second?" He stepped towards me, suddenly too close.

"Have you ever dared to do the forbidden thing?" He said, standing so close I wanted to leap back. "Lay yourself to waste to let something else take your place, something perhaps even greater than yourself?"

"I-I dont know what you mean." I whispered.

"Of course you don't." Tom said. And without any warning, he kissed me. It was like ice meeting fire, and every other cliché muggle fairy tale depiction of passion I had ever read. But the burning fire creeping up through me I didn't expect. Nor did I expect that I would be the one to kiss him back, or let him lift me onto him until we were both tangled in each other on my bed. I had him pinned beneath me, my legs on either side of his body like I had envisioned for many sleepless nights, but instead of his dead body it was both of ours together locked together in an expression of explicit lust.

I felt wrong. But... I couldn't for the life of me manage to remember my damn morals. My lips sought his, discovering with savage pleasure equally reciprocated passion. My identity was lost forever in the feel of him, his cold hands on my waist, the feel of his mouth on my skin. And I...

Wanted more. And as much as it killed me I realised what I wanted above all else.

I wanted him.

Tom's hands crept up my top, chilling my heated skin to the core, his hands were gentle at first but then his nails scratched up my skin in a way which would've hurt but now felt like as liberating as tearing through every facade I had ever built to protect myself from him. I arched into him, his hands finding every nerve and setting each one on fire. I had clearly lost my goddamned mind.

"Let-yourself- go." Tom's voice was husky. Turned on. I did this to him.

He moved us until he was on top of me. I realised I had absolutely no top on at all, but I wasn't shying away. Tom had unlocked a carnal creature inside me, who had only just reared her head.

And she was insatiable. I froze, my body locked onto him like... a common whore? Or... ink on parchment.

My hands reached for him, pulling him closer. I felt like how every girl who had ever had him must've felt. I felt like pure filth, like I had just marred my own innocent soul. I closed my eyes, and gave in to him until the darkness took over, until it swallowed me as a whole, willing captive.